By Saul Sebag-Montefiore
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| Cape Coast Castle |
Beneath the impressive white structure, rows of cannons, and stacks of cannonballs of Cape Coast Castle lies a dark history of cruelty, dehumanisation, torture and murder.
During the rule of the British Empire Cape Coast Castle was used as base for slave capture and racketeering. On Republic Day I went to visit the Castle as a British man returning to the scene of a horrendous crime.
On Barack Obama and his family visited the Castle to pay respect to their ancestors and upon the sight of the conditions Obama could not help but to shed a tear. There is a real atmosphere of tragedy and horror that surrounds the place and as an Englishman it is impossible not to bow your head in shame at the stories of cruelty that still live strongly today in the relic that is the Castle.
Up until 1807 (when the slave trade was banned by the British) innocent Africans were taken from villages or as prisoners of war, separated from their families and then chained like animals, thrown in the dungeons of Cape Coast Castle to wait to be bought and transported on ships to destinations, such as the US, for a life of hardship and enslavement. The dungeons consist of a three small, dark, dank, claustrophobic rooms, the only source of light is a small square at the top of the hard stone wall, other than this the room is pitch black. There is a crude stone gutter running around the edge and cutting through the centre of the room. In each small room 50-80 men or women were squashed in like sardines for a minimum of 6 weeks, often unable to communicate to each other in the pitch black as each person came from different tribes. The gutter around the edge and running through the centre of the room was their urinal and on the wall there is an indentation at waist-height where the piles of human faeces had reached and eroded part of the brick. This forces you to imagine the hellish, pungent smell and heat in this stifling, underground dungeon with meters of human faeces sliding down the walls and crawling sickeningly through the centre of the room. These innocent human beings had all their rights taken away from them – they were classed as ‘subhuman’ and forced to live in an unsanitary furnace of their own filth.
However, this is not the worst part of this true story. Female slaves were often taken from their cells in the dozens and raped by British soldiers. There were also occasions when the slaves attempted to escape and kill their captors. On these occasions the British guards would capture and string up the perpetrators in front of the other Africans in the dungeons and use a machete to slice off both of their arms. The British guards would leave the body of the perpetrator in the dungeon as life slowly seeped out of him. His thick, red blood would splatter onto the hard, stone floor as a gruesome warning to the other slaves of the fate of rebels. Alternatively, condemned slaves were thrown into a tiny, swelteringly hot room with no source of light whatsoever. These Africans were left to die slowly of starvation (without any food or water) as they gasped for oxygen in the thin air of the death cell. On the floor there are deep scratches and significant chunks missing from the walls. These are the marks left by dying slaves who in their agony scratched desperately at the floor with their shackles and chains. The chunks missing from the walls are where slaves bit into the wall in the pain and delirium of their hapless final swipes at life and freedom.
This physical evidence of human suffering and death at the hands of the British is a powerful symbol of Ghana’s desire to be free. For this reason it could not be more appropriate that this visit of Cape Coast Castle occurred on Republic Day. During my visit to the castle I was led out of the door that used to be called ‘the door of no return’ as this was were the slaves were led onto boats for the long, arduous journey towards a life of servitude and suffering. However, on this occasion the ‘door of no return’ leads to a fishing dockyard, thriving with African commerce and a new symbolic sign has been put up that says, ‘the door of return’. This joyfully declares the independence of Ghana and makes a strong statement as descendents of the slaves can finally return to their homeland as free citizens and pay respects to their ancestors. In this way Cape Coast Castle is a special place and a real, living relic of the suffering so many innocent Africans.
On the other hand, for the people of the countries who
lead and participated in the trading and enslavement of Africans (e.g. US, Dutch) it is important to visit places like Cape Coast Castle that are dotted across Ghana’s borders to remind ourselves of our dark history and to avoid repeating such awful acts of cruelty and prejudice. I am one of these people and today, as a badly sunburnt British man I sink shamefully into my flimsy sandals as I stand in the dungeons looking deep into the heart of my country’s heinous crimes while the Ghanaians finally run free. I sincerely press you to do the same because it is a truly shocking but necessary and interesting experience.
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| Dungeon Cape Coast Castle |
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